Earlier this week, ESPN released their NFL Power Rankings for the upcoming 2016-2017 NFL season. And guess who they ranked number one? Yes, our New England Patriots.

I was actually blown away when I saw this for a couple reasons. One being that ESPN has constantly covered everything and anything bad they hear happening with the Patriots. Including covering every waking second of Deflategate. From the rants I’ve seen on that show, I don’t believe there’s too many Pats fans over there at ESPN which is why I’m surprised they ranked them at the top seed. But that’s just my bias opinion. And two, mainly because Tom Brady apparently won’t be playing until the fifth week due to his Deflategate suspension.

Even though Brady is most likely not going to play for the first four games of the season, do not count them out. From the looks of it most people would say that the Patriots have done a very good job this off season with the draft and free agent pick ups. Here are some new notable players to keep an eye out for this upcoming season:

New Players to Keep an Eye On

TE Martellus Bennett

WR Chris Hogan

G Jonathan Cooper

DE Chris Long

WR Nate Washington

CB Cyrus Jones

DT Anthony Johnson

It looks like the Pats and Jimmy Garoppolo have their work cut out for them as they play in Arizona against the Cardinals for Game 1 of the season. But Patriots fans do not worry. We have one of the most diverse and intricate running games in the league along with many different running backs of all shapes and sizes. Our wide receiver positions just got even stronger with the adds in of Nate Washington and potential slot receiver Chris Hogan. The Pats have arguably the best tight end scheme in the entire NFL with Rob Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett. They have improved their defense with add ins at the LB, DT, and CB positions. The biggest question Patriots fans are left with is, can the offensive line protect the quarterback?

It is probably a poor turn of phrase given the stigma of performance-enhancing drugs and the recent spate of suspensions as Major League Baseball cracks down on PED violations. But how else to describe this start by Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright?

Already putting up unfathomable numbers through his first five starts – ones that make Red Sox fans wonder if he body swapped with David Price – Wright continued his stellar run and cemented his status as the best pitcher on the Red Sox staff with a complete game three-hitter to salvage the last game of the series against the New York Yankees.

Last night the Red Sox were in the Bronx for the first game of a three game series against the Yankees.

Top of the ninth, bases loaded, one out, down by one run, Big Papi is up. Nobody else you’d rather have at bat in this situation. Ortiz had a great chance to capitalize late in the game and put the Sox in the lead but had his chances stolen from him by not one, but two very questionable strikes called by home plate umpire Ron Kulpa.

One of the best closers in baseball, Andrew Miller, found himself in a jam as the Red Sox had bases loaded as Big Papi came to the plate. Ortiz worked a 3-1 count. Miller delivered a low and outside slider for a called strike making it a 3-2 count. Ortiz immediately turned to Kulpa with his arms spread wide and yelling “NO!” as he did not agree with the call. John Farrell rushed to Ortiz to restrain him because the at bat was not over and they still needed him to hit. Farrell backed up Ortiz and continued to deliver some pretty heated words towards Kulpa as he ejected the Sox manager from the game.

Still visually upset, Ortiz still had a job to do at the plate. The next pitch was again delivered low and outside but was even lower than the previous pitch. Ortiz watched it for strike three as Kulpa rung him up. Ortiz put his head down and walked back to the bench. But when he got to the dugout, he snapped and ran out to Kulpa screaming his head off. John Farrell and other members of the team had to restrain Ortiz from ripping Kulpa’s head off for the two bad calls against him.

The game should have been tied with 1 out and Hanley Ramirez at the plate but that wasn’t the case. Those two picthes were balls, I don’t care what anybody says. According to the “K-Zone,” Kulpa missed 31 calls in last night’s game. The 3-2 strike called on Ortiz was reported to be five and half inches below the strike zone. That’s a pretty big screw up in a tight game like that, especially between the Sox and Yanks.

Everyone knows those were bad calls. The umpire missed the first one but missing the second one too is a big no no, you just can’t do that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ortiz that mad before. We’ve all seen him mad but last night was something else. If I saw Papi sprinting at me like that, I don’t even know what I would do with myself. He was down right scary last night.

If any phrase were to summarize Clay Buchholz so far this season, it would be “What the Buch??”

Wednesday night’s start against the Chicago White Sox finally flipped the script, as Buchholz’s seven strong innings had Boston Red Sox fans saying “Buch, yeah!” in celebration of a 5-2 win over the best record in the American League.

Deflategate news is back and I cannot comprehend why. This controversial story was first introduced to the public after the 2015 AFC championship game that featured the Patriots and Colts. It is now April 2016, over one year and three months since these allegations were introduced and we are STILL talking about this. Well thanks to Roger Goodell, Patriots fans have more reasons to despise him.

It seemed like we had the world in our hands going into the 2015-2016 season as Tom Brady was fresh out of a Deflategate court win. We had our starting quarterback for game one of the season, we were playing as the defending Super Bowl champions, and Brady’s revenge tour was engaged. We felt like nobody could stop our team. The Patriots had a fantastic season before coming up just short to the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game. Continue reading It’s Now Roger Goodell vs Patriots Nation »

That is a mostly rhetorical question, but I’ve been wondering about it for a little over a week. Most of my confusion and bewilderment concerns Chris Young, and the fact that he has been poorly utilized by the Red Sox in 2016. I’ve emphasized it a lot before, but it’s worth mentioning again that Chris Young should never be facing a right-handed pitcher, because he will not have success. Yet once again Young found himself in the starting lineup with a right-hander on the mound in 2016. I’m sure John Farrell will come up with some ridiculous nonsense explaining why Young replaced Brock Holt in Thursday’s lineup, but it will explain nothing and make no logical sense to anyone.